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UPP Technical Workshop on Municipal Finance

Sarajevo, 25-26. 9. 2018

On September 25-26, 2018 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Urban Partnership Program gathered around 50 participants from cities and municipalities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, as well as representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism from Montenegro, and Local Government Associations from these countries to exchange best practices and discuss solutions regarding the most important issues concerning local finances and development, in a trusting and familiar context.

The UPP has been strengthening financial management and supporting capacity building with a network of local experts in the region through the Municipal Finance Self-Assessment and related tools. In the latest UPP survey, conducted in June 2018, 67% of respondents confirmed that the MFSA helped improve the financial management of municipalities and 73% that the UPP helped access funding to finance local, national or regional urban projects. The success of the program, which has involved more than 80 municipalities and 500 practitioners and decision makers, is mainly due to regular interactive technical workshops and learning events where participants have the opportunity to discuss municipal finances and share experiences with their peers from neighboring countries and beyond.

The main focus of the workshop was the presentation of the new MFSA V2.0 application to participants after the testing phase and before its official launch. All finance experts pointed out that the tool supports local government’s decision-making process considerably, through readily visible financial management trends, possible interventions, and benchmarking. This tool can also be used for capital investment planning, debt management and presenting results to potential donors, but it also provides arguments for discussions with the ministries of finance on issues of fiscal decentralization. The MFSA V2.0 application is currently being tested with users, revised and customized, and it will soon be fully released and disseminated.

During the first day of the workshop, participants had a chance to exchange experiences on common challenges related to a number of topics, including how to design capital investment plans; citizen engagement in decision making (with special focus on participatory budgeting) which focused on showing the advantages and methods of citizen involvement for improved development results and the PEFA (Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability) methodology on which the MFSA was partly based. Finance experts led a group exercise were participants were asked to create an implementation plan for 6 selected capital projects for designated municipalities. All groups successfully completed the exercise demonstrating a different level of readiness to diversify external sources of funding for capital projects. For more information please see the full summary report.

The second day of the workshop started with sharing experiences from outside of the Western Balkans region and showcasing the model of Iller Bank in Turkey, a development bank, and its Sustainable Cities Project. Ilbank has been very successful in supporting municipalities with funding and technical assistance and the team aims to encourage municipalities in Turkey to use the MFSA for capital investment plans and to improve analysis, decision making and overall financial management. During the course of the day, participants had the opportunity to discuss systems of debt management related to fiscal decentralization (% of VAT received by municipalities), legalization processes for objects and properties, and how to establish successful models of Public Private Partnerships. Great example was given by the Mayor of City of Koprivnica, from Croatia, where the main factor of success was the excellent quality of the consultants and the precisely detailed maintenance clauses in the 25-year lease contract.
The cities and municipalities appreciated the opportunity to share and discuss important issues of joint interest, compare laws and regulations, provide suggestions and support to one another, and to pose questions to the Ministries and LGA representatives in a safe environment.

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"The MFSA tool is very useful and can help LGs assess their financial performance and look for additional financing. On the other hand, it is a huge responsibility to translate the budget into strategies that will drive LG's development", Reisa Duraj, Head of Finance and Treasure Relations Sector of the Shkoder Municipality, Albania

"This capacity building program will enhance knowledge and skills of local governments, particularly of medium and large cities."